Invest
by kathleensmiles
Summary: "How could she condemn someone to that? To constant running until something grabbed you and sank it's teeth in deep?" Carol announces to Daryl that she's pregnant. AU, done for Tumblr prompt for Klaineisbrave. Please review.


**Author's note!  
So hey...This is a oneshot for a Tumblr prompt for KlaineIsBrave**** who I sincerely hope enjoys it :)  
The prompt is Carol having to tell Daryl that she's pregnant**.  
**Oneshot is unbetaed and rated for language and light allusion to adult situation, what with her being pregnant and all :)  
Enjoy and please review!**_  
_

_Where you invest your love, _  
_you invest your life._  
_Awake My Soul- Mumford And Sons_

Carol was pacing, anxious, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps as she walked around the washroom, staring hard at the little pink plus sign.  
It looked so tiny, insignificant, laying there in the palm of her hand. Physically it was- with just the slightest effort on her part she could snap the stupid thing in two. But that wouldn't change the facts, wouldn't wipe the information that little plus sign hand engraved into her brain.  
I. Am. Pregnant. She thought to herself, staring intensely at her reflection in the mirror, every wrinkle seemingly magnified.  
I am 44 years old, and I am pregnant.  
That sounded ludicrous enough on it's own, without the other little detail. She took a deep breath, looking intently back at herself in the glass.  
I am 44 years old and I am pregnant with Daryl Dixons baby- and now I have to go tell him.  
Tell him, she chuckled bitterly. Tell him that she was going to give birth at 44, a complicated procedure before all this, when there would of been hospitals, painkillers, doctors and nurses at her beck and call. Tell him that now, in the middle of a war with some maniac, preparations would have to be made, that someone would need to go on a run for medical supplies.  
Even if they managed to pull all of that off, there was no certainty that she or the baby would make it, she thought, panicked mind flashing back to Lori.  
She wasn't even sure if she wanted the baby to make it, to throw another lost soul, alone and unprepared into a world that showed mercy for no man, woman or child. It certainly hadn't spared her Sophia, her sweet, beautiful girl who'd never brought harm to anyone.  
Her scared little baby who never even got a chance to see how good things could be, without Ed's foul breath always on the back of their necks.  
A brief bit of hope shot through her as she thought of Judith, but it was quickly vanquished by the thought of threats just outside the fence.  
Of the walkers, the endless dead, but worse of all of the living, the other groups who seemed a thousand times the monsters the walkers were.  
Walkers were straightforward, dead and diseased- they just wanted your flesh, just existed to eat and consume.  
But people...People were conniving, evil. They wanted your body, your family, your pain. They wanted to hear you scream just for the hell of it.  
Like the people trying to break them down right now.  
Sure Judith was safe at the moment, but how long would it last, how long could it?  
What would happen if the prison was overrun, if the Governor forced them back on the road?  
Then every cry, every little shriek for food and water that simply wasn't there would bring a hoard down on them, put everyone at risk.  
Then Rick's little girl, the baby Lori had given up life to bring into the world, wouldn't last a week.  
How could she condemn someone to that? To constant running until something grabbed you and sank it's teeth in deep?  
God, she didn't know if she could.  
Could she bring herself to end it, snuff out that little person before they truly began?  
She choked back a sob, mixed with bile, at the options that lay before her, at the choice she had to make.  
Leaning over the sink suddenly, she sobbed while she vomited, throat burning, eyes stinging with tears.  
Oh, god, she didn't know, she just didn't know.

"Daryl," she gasped out, throat scratchy,"I need Daryl."

Wiping the back of her hand across her mouth, shaking slightly, she ran full tilt out of the room, not stopping until she reached the perch.  
Daryl looked up instantly at her arrival, standing up immediately, dropping the arrows he'd been sharpening at the sight of her shaking, pale, a thin veil of sweat covering her now.

"Wha' the hell 'appened?" He demanded, afraid that Axel might have gone too far, exchanged his usual bullshit come-ons for his hands, angry at the idea, but approaching slowly, not wanting to frighten her.

"Pregnant," she forced out in a rush of air.

"Wha?"

"I'm pregnant."

And just like that he stumbled backwards into his seat, head spinning, he cradled it in his hands.

"Ya sure?" He asked, feeling ridiculous for doing it but unable to help himself even though surely she of all people would know.

"I'm sure."

Lori died giving birth to Jude, he thought, feeling the blood drain from his face, the idea of Carol slit open forcing itself into his mind.  
No, that couldn't happen, he wouldn't let it, he repeated to himself as he felt fear grab hold of him.  
Yet even as these thoughts ran through his head, part of him was amazed, astonished at the idea of a little person that was theirs, a person that part of him wanted so badly to meet, to teach to fight and live in this world.  
But I don't want Carol to die, he thought again, unable to decide if it was worth the risk.

"Daryl?" Carol spoke, face worried. "What to you want to do?"

He shook his head slowly. "I dunno. Ya got any ideas?"

She shook her head in turn.

He nodded, biting his thumbnail nervously. "Ain't like we gotta decide now."

"No?"

"Naw," he insisted, "we'll figure it out."

"We will?" She asked, face drawn, worry still lurking in her eyes.

"Yeah..." He tore into his thumb a little longer, then gesture at the space beside him. "C'mere."

She obliged, sitting next to him, letting his capable hands work out the knots of tension in her shoulders, letting her neck fall back into the comfort of his touch.

"We will," he insisted.

And as Carol leaned back into his hands, she believed him.


End file.
